


infelicity

by nonbinarywithaknife (littleboxes)



Series: dimension 20 [28]
Category: Dimension 20 (Web Series)
Genre: (you know who's funeral), Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Wakes & Funerals, using every possible word surrounding the concept of loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24965770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleboxes/pseuds/nonbinarywithaknife
Summary: Infelicity. [ in-fuh-lis-i-tee ] noun.1. the quality or state of being unhappy; unhappiness.2. misfortune; bad luck.3. [noun, plural] an unfortunate circumstance; misfortune.Jet’s funeral.
Relationships: The Rocks Family & Sprinkle (Dimension 20), Theobald Gumbar & Sprinkle (Dimension 20)
Series: dimension 20 [28]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1706107
Comments: 17
Kudos: 30





	infelicity

**Author's Note:**

> thanks mr murphy for breaking choosing to make a sprinkle based angst decision AFTER i'd gotten emotionally invested in him. super appreciate that. there isn't any graphic violence or anything but there's almost a graphic depiction of grief/loss and i feel like i should warn for that somehow. so. be careful with yourselves

Sprinkle hovers just above Summoner-Theo’s shoulder and doesn’t whimper. He can feel through their link Summoner-Theo clinging to _be strong-stay composed-keep it together_ , and so Sprinkle clings to it too and doesn’t whimper, even though Princess-Jet is _gone_ , she is _dead-lost-mourned_ and it hurts Sprinkle in a way that he didn’t know _gone-dead-lost-mourned_ things could. He knows he is hollow but it feels as though he has been filled with feelings, with things that ache and hurt and press and pull and Sprinkle wonders how it can be a creature with no candy-heart can still feel it hurting. 

They’ve put her in the ground and Sprinkle doesn’t understand _why_ , because Princess-Jet was _never still-bad at stillness-always moving_ and now she _isn’t_ , and Sprinkle doesn’t understand and he does and he _hates_ it. 

(Sprinkle understands _hate_ now understands it not because of their link not because of looking but because it wells up in him like blood out of a- fragile, intricate, broken, why is it so _broken_ \- body and Sprinkle wishes he could shove it back where it came from. Hate is _choking_ -bleeding-burning is hurting-curling- _pry it up and expose it_ and hate spits and claws and _clings_ and Sprinkle learns it despite himself, and it is horrible.)

Prince-Amethar doesn’t burn, anymore, doesn’t flare bright with confident welcome, instead he’s breathed it all inside and trapped it there, and it is wrong and Sprinkle hates it. His presence isn’t small but it has been taken and packed and molded to fit into a tiny space; Prince-Amethar has taken his vastness and made it dense with pain-anger-blame-vengeance, has taken his joy-love-wonder-pride and made it into a neutron star and Sprinkle hates it, hates what grief-mourning-loss-death does to people, _his_ people.

The-Queen-Lady-Caramelinda is opposite of Prince-Amethar. She has had her careful, curated self be unraveled, has been stretched so thin she has broken, her strands are drifting into the wind and even though she tries to reach and pull herself together her arms are slowing, her care evaporating, and Sprinkle wants her to gather herself up, wants to gather her up and stick her back together, weave her back into wholeness, but he _can’t_ and she _can’t_ and it isn’t fair. Why isn’t it fair! 

Princess-Ruby is here and she is faded and Sprinkle hates it. Tries to go to her, to lure her brightness back out, even though he knows half of it has been buried, still, trapped, in the ground. But then Summoner-Theo tells him _no_ and it is not a playful suggestion but an _order_ and so Sprinkle stays. Stays and for the first time in his service, _hates_ it. 

Princess-Ruby is small, too small, her eyes- very important things, eyes, Sprinkle does not have them but he sees anyway, the seeing isn’t why they’re important, but eyes allow _you_ to see into _them_ and Sprinkle looks and sees pain, so much pain, like the seas have swallowed her eyes up and drowned the rest of her. 

Princess-Ruby is in pain and alone and Young-Master-Liam is drowning in grief of another kind and two drowning people can’t help each other, especially not when they're drowning in two different seas, and Sprinkle tries to make Summoner-Theo _understand_ , they _need him_ , but Summoner-Theo still pushes back against his own sea that is threatening to break down his walls and wash him away with its tides, is too busy being _still-proper-composed-keep it together_ to listen. 

He wants to buzz with irritation, to poke and prod until he is _listened to_ , because things that are small and not good at talking- better! Sprinkle has gotten much better, can form the words when he is angry, happy, _feeling_ , enough- _for Candia!_ \- but finds he prefers to squeal and buzz and growl because that is _him_ and not an imitation of others- things that are small and talk in ways that others find _difficult_ tend to get ignored by even the most understanding of people, but Sprinkle knows that like how there are some tirednesses that require touch and some that require distance, some grief needs to be poked and prodded until it can be gently placed off of shoulders and some needs to be left alone, too raw and sensitive for poking or prodding or any sort of placing, gentle as it may be.

Sprinkle knows this, knows that Summoner-Theo is too soft to take Sprinkle’s prodding even with his armor-shell-protection, but it is _hard._ He can feel the rawness of _failure-not your fault-not perfect-should have been there-you couldn’t have known-but you should have_ in Summoner-Theo and sees threads of it in the eyes of Prince-Amethar, in Princess-Ruby. 

Sees reflections and mirrors of it in the-Queen-Lady-Caramelinda. He sees it and feels it and knows what is needed from him but feels _antsy_ and _useless_ and _ineffective_ anyway.

Princess-Ruby leaves and Summoner-Theo follows and they speak but it isn’t enough, Sprinkle knows and Summoner-Theo knows and Princess-Ruby knows, but they do it anyway and Sprinkle understands that it is- _trying to understand-showing empathy-you are not alone_ but it doesn’t work and Sprinkle doesn’t understand _why_.

Princess-Ruby becomes Friend-Yak like how Summoner-Theo sometimes sees through Sprinkle and he doesn’t understand _why_ but it makes him anxious and he watches Cousin-Cumulous hover like Sprinkle does and he hopes that it will help Princess-Ruby. 

Summoner-Theo is tall and stiff and Sprinkle can sense him crumbling, falling apart, and when he does, Sprinkle wraps himself around his neck and purrs. There isn’t anything else for him to do, and Sprinkle wishes he were bigger, so that he could wrap around Summoner-Theo and hug him until the sad-grief-pain-hurt- _loss_ fades but he can’t so he purrs and purrs until Summoner-Theo stops crying, shaking, crumbling.

Summoner-Theo shores himself up and then looks at him with sadness-hope-grief and says, _Sprinkle, I need you to go with Jet now_. Sprinkle doesn’t _understand_ , because Princess-Jet is- dead, gone, buried, _gone gone gone_ \- and Sprinkle burrs in confusion and unfurls from around his neck to hover, anxiously, in front of Summoner-Theo, and Summoner-Theo pats him but his paw shakes and Sprinkle doesn’t understand but as he looks into Summoner-Theo’s mind he _does_ , and Sprinkle cries.

He has no eyes to cry from, no tears to drop from the face he doesn’t have, but Sprinkle shakes and whines and _cries_ , but Summoner-Theo _needs_ him, needs him to do this thing, this last thing, and Sprinkle is meant to _help_ Summoner-Theo so he listens, and sniffles, and when Summoner-Theo sends him away, he focuses on his task. Go to Princess-Jet, help Princess-Jet. Sprinkle _will_. 

**Author's Note:**

> sprinkle simultaneously knows these people better than they know themselves and doesn’t understand them at all and writing that is. fun.  
> a neutron star is the collapsed core of a giant star and I'm thinking about amethar and space metaphors again. god. fuck. sprinkle knows about space for the angst of it


End file.
